Page 21 of A November to Remember

“Forster is a good man,” the colonel said. “I served with him briefly before the Peninsula. He has a terrible palate for wine, but he is a solid commander. It will be a relief to speak to someone about proper military operations rather than three-legged horses.”

“Indeed,” Robert drawled with a sigh. “Though I found the three-legged horse more entertaining than the prospect of regimental gossip. If you will excuse me, Miss Bingley, I must go and write to my tailor. The crisis of the tasselled slipper weighs heavily on my soul.”

With bows that ranged from elegant (Viscount) to stiff (Darcy) to distracted by a sandwich (Colonel), the gentlemen, followed by Charles, escaped the drawing-room, leaving Caroline alone with her incapacitated relatives.

The moment the door closed behind them, her posture collapsed. She sank onto the chaise longue, her limbs feeling as though they had been filled with lead. Her jaw ached from smiling and her shoulders burned from maintaining the perfect angle at which to display her bosom. Her throat was dry from pitching her voice up and she was exhausted. Flirting with three men simultaneously was not a social triumph; it was a feat of endurance for which she was severely unequipped.

“Mrs Nicholls,” Louisa moaned from her chair. “Where is the beetroot juice?”

“Forget the juice,” Caroline snapped, dragging a hand over her carefully arranged curls. “Louisa. We have a crisis of monumental proportions. He is smitten. Smitten! Did you not hear Charles? Mr Darcy, my Mr Darcy, agreed with Eliza Bennet over a dead Greek.”

Louisa blinked, temporarily distracted from her nausea. “Mr Darcy? But she has no fortune and her mother is vulgar.”

“Men are simple creatures, Louisa! They get distracted.” Caroline stood up and began to pace, the marshland treatise forgotten on the table. “We must act. We must sever this connection before he does something absurd, like ask her to dance again.”

“How?”

Caroline stopped pacing. Her eyes narrowed as a devious plan formed in her tired mind.

“We cannot invite Miss Elizabeth here; that would be handing her the keys to Pemberley on a silver platter,” she muttered, tapping her chin. “But we must know what she is thinking. We need intelligence. We need to know exactly how far this little flirtation has progressed.”

“We could invite Jane Bennet,” Louisa suggested. “Charles is already in love with her anyway. He is rhapsodising about the angel on earth. We might as well use her.”

“Exactly.” Caroline smiled. “We shall invite the angel to dine with us. Angels are notoriously trusting. She will tell us everything her sister says in confidence. We shall pry the truth out of her over dessert, and then I will formulate a plan to ruin Elizabeth Bennet in Mr Darcy’s eyes forever.”

Caroline sank back onto the chaise, closing her eyes. She had a plan. Now, if only she could convince her heart to stop pounding and her calves to stop aching, she might just survive the week.

Robert took the stairs two at a time. He reached his bedchamber, but he did not wish to be alone with his thoughts nagging him, and Boodles was too judgemental. He needed his brother.

He found Richard in his chamber, coat off, boots on the windowsill, dismantling the plate of beef courtesy of Miss Bingley.

“Well.” Richard did not look up. “Say it.”

“I shall not say it, because saying it makes it official.” Robert closed the door and leaned against it. “I shall merely observe that our cousin crossed a threshold.”

“Noticed that.” Richard sniggered. “He also smiled the entire way home.”

“He did not smile the entire way home. He smiled approximately one-eighth of a smile for two miles, which for Darcy constitutes hysteria.” Robert abandoned the door for the armchair. “Richard. Be serious for a moment, if your constitution permits. What did you see?”

Richard set down the plate. That alone made Robert sit straighter; Richard did not set down plates for trivialities.

“I saw a man wounded in spirit since Ramsgate,” Richard said thoughtfully, “stand up straight for the length of one argument about a dead Greek.” He wiped his hands on his breeches, to the future grief of Dickinson, his man. “You know how he has been these last five years since Uncle George died and he inherited. Guarding Georgiana, guarding the estate, guarding the family name, guarding the bloody salt cellar. The man has been on sentry duty against the world and everything in it. This morning, he came off the wall for her. It means he is fascinated.”

“Fascinated,” Robert agreed. “Not in love. Let us be precise; it is far too early for love, and I refuse to make plans on faulty intelligence.”

“Exactly. But fascinated for Darcy is what smitten is for other men. He does not do things by degrees. He does nothing at all and then buys the horse.”

Robert steepled his fingers and gazed at the ceiling, where generations of Netherfield spiders had established their residences. His cousin. His stiff, decent, impossible cousin, who had carried the whole family on his back since he was three-and-twenty and had somewhere along the road stopped expecting anything for himself. Aunt Anne’s son. The boy who used to laugh.

“He will do nothing, of course,” Robert added quietly. “He will reason himself out of it. Unsuitable connections, dreadful mother, Georgiana’s situation, duty, duty, duty. He will fold the whole business up like a letter he never intends to send.”

“Which brings us to your own attempts at folding things up.” Richard pointed his fork at Robert, his tone shifting abruptly. “Why are you being so rude to Miss Bennet? You presented your hindquarters to her today. It was appalling.”

Robert stiffened, unsteepling his fingers to grip the arms of his chair. He stared at the carpet. “I am preserving my sanity.”

“You are being a brute. Bingley is too blind to see it, but you are freezing the poor girl out.”

“I must.” Robert gripped the fabric, the image of her gentle smile flashing in his mind. He lifted his head. “I am in love with her, Richard.”